(ORDO NEWS) — On February 16, 1923, the scientific world was agitated by sensational news from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.
In the tomb of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamen, discovered three months earlier, a burial chamber hidden from view was discovered, into which the author of the find, archaeologist Howard Carter and his assistant, forensic doctor Douglas Derry, stepped.
The mummy of the ruler was found laid in a sarcophagus, and he was placed in several arks – one on top of the other.
By joint efforts, the Europeans reached the remains of the pharaoh, but they could not extract them without damaging them. Carter recalled that Derry used scissors and, finding nothing better, cut the pharaoh’s torso in two, and then beat off his limbs.
Contrary to romantic legend, the participants in the autopsy did not suffer any retribution. But just a few weeks later, the sponsor of the expedition, the British Lord George Carnarvon, died of pneumonia, and after him two researchers who inspected the tomb among the first.
The legend of the curse inspired Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot detective Pharaoh’s Revenge and filmmakers to countless blockbusters. The image of the mummy continues to circulate in popular culture to this day.
The doors of the tomb open
First depression, then bewildered admiration, after all – confusion. This is how we can sum up the impressions of the British archaeologist Howard Carter, who gave seven years of his life in search of the tomb, miraculously found it, but discovered that Tutankhamen was not in it.
According to indirect signs – mentions in the paintings of neighboring burials of the burial complex of the Valley of the Kings – the Englishman concluded that the teenage pharaoh who ruled Egypt for nine years should have found his last resting place nearby.
When luck finally smiled at Carter, it turned out that the underground chamber contained everything that Ancient Egypt was rich in, except for its king.
The room in which the Briton came to his senses was later called the anterior chamber. It was covered with murals: Carter’s career in archeology had begun many years earlier by copying similar ones.
A gifted draftsman and the son of a portrait painter, he enlisted the recommendations of his father’s acquaintances and came to Egypt to study his art.
Carter looked at the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamun with the eyes of an artist, which threw a discrepancy: the remains of the pharaoh were not in sight, although for some reason a place was found in the tomb for three boxes made by jewelers.
“Their carved edges were in the form of monsters with bizarrely curved bodies, […] the heads were strikingly real. Absolutely terrible creatures, if you look at them at any time: we have experienced it ourselves.
The gilded surface shimmered when electric light fell on them, and their heads cast distorted shadows on the walls,” Carter described his dismay. Overcoming what he himself called “horror”, the archaeologist and his assistant Derry inspected the walls of the chamber, in one of which they found a door.
When it was possible to penetrate behind it, it was found that the tomb stretches far inland. In the next room, the remains of Tutankhamen appeared before the eyes of the invaders.
Judging by the way the surgeon Derry did with the mummy of the pharaoh, the fear of the secrets of the tombs did not fetter him for long.
Unless it affected the feverish activity that the doctor had developed in trying to remove the remains of the pharaoh from the sarcophagus. It was not possible to do this because of the lubricants used in mummification: over the millennia, they managed to acquire the properties of glue.
Not knowing what to do, the archaeologists carried the coffin out of the cold and darkness under the scorching Egyptian sun, but they were unable to melt the grease in this way. Then Derry, inspired by his professional experience, undertook to dissect the mummy.
According to Carter’s memoirs, scissors and even a hammer were used. The body was cut into two parts, arms and legs were beaten off, hitting the ribs: subsequently, several of them were not counted. Although in violation of all the principles of modern scientific ethics,
However, neither Derry himself nor any of his contemporaries ran the risk of being obstructed by the scientific community. For 100 years, dissecting mummies without following any rules was considered a legal practice in Western countries.
Since the 1820s, mummies have been turned into show business in Europe. The British and French bought them in Egypt and, bringing them to their capitals, publicly opened them, selling tickets for performances or arranging a horror show in a narrow circle.
More than others, the surgeon and antiquary (but in fact – the destroyer of ancient burial places) Thomas Pettigrew became notorious: he has about 30 publicly gutted mummies on his conscience.
It was then, in the 19th century, that for the first time a legend arose about the revenge of the pharaohs, enraged by a posthumous hit on an almost circus show. The first work of horror in the genre of horror writer Jane Webb-Loudon, dedicated to mummies (“Mummy!”), was published already in 1827.
Due to the popularity of this and other horror stories, the public quickly believed in the legend of the curse of Tutankhamun: several random coincidences fell on the already prepared soil.
Hearts of three
Without thinking about how they would look in the eyes of posterity, Carter and Derry continued to move forward through the thickness of the tomb. In one of its departments, they found canopies – ancient Egyptian vessels, without which not a single mummification could do.
These decorated containers were used to store the internal organs of a corpse, including its liver, heart, and brain. To extract the latter, one had to ingeniously operate with a metal pin, which was inserted through the nostril, paving the way to the skull. It was not always possible to achieve results.
The Egyptian art of mummification reached its pinnacle during the 18th Dynasty (1550-1292 BC), to which Tutankhamun belonged.
According to the canons of funerary art, the organless body of the king was left for 40 days, resin was injected under the skin to preserve the freshness of the tissues, and sprinkled with soda.
Organs removed from the remains were also prepared for posthumous existence: they were dried for a specially allotted time.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote centuries later, gave details of the preparation for burial: “A cut is made in the groin with a sharp Ethiopian stone and all the insides are immediately taken out of the stomach; having cleaned the abdominal cavity and rinsed it with palm wine, they again clean it with ground incense; finally, the stomach is filled with mashed myrrh, kasoy and other spices, but not incense, and sewn up.
While performing mummifications, the pharaoh’s contemporaries sometimes faced tasks that were beyond their capacity. While examining one of the chambers, Carter made a startling discovery: there were two tiny mummies of the premature daughters (or sisters?) of Tutankhamen.
The problem for embalmers was age. It was not possible to extract the internal organs through the incisions on the children’s bellies.
But something strange happened: in obedience to their ideas or by mistake, the masters inserted cuts of linen fabric into the girls’ skulls. Egyptologists still argue about the meaning of this act.
Secrets taken from the grave
When the study of the tomb was completed, disappointment began to mix with the admiration of scientists. Despite the rich decoration, no historical texts were found on the walls of the pharaoh’s tomb.
It is paradoxical, but true: the discovery of the tomb did not particularly bring scientists closer to understanding the mysteries of the nine-year reign of Tutankhamun, his life and death, and even his place among the rulers of the 18th dynasty, which is only hypothetically restored.
Known for his quarrelsome character, Howard Carter once remarked that the only thing left of the reign of Tutankhamun was that he ascended the throne and was buried. Archaeologists added to this another remark: “The tomb was not plundered after death.”
Today it is already known that this is not the case: treasure thieves also visited Tutankhamun, but due to the inaccessible position of the tomb, there were fewer of them than other pharaohs. The ruler entered world history and popular culture mainly due to chance.
However, there is something of a regularity in it. Tutankhamun was buried in the tomb, which was difficult to access and not wide enough for the pharaoh, because of his early death, which meant that nothing was ready for the solemn ceremony of farewell to the king.
According to the customs of Egypt, the ruler began to take care of the burial ahead of time, but Tutankhamun did not have time to complete the work, and he could not have heirs who would take care of the posthumous repose of his father.
As a result, a contender came to power who had nothing in common with his predecessor, the priest or vizier Eye.
Without a twinge of conscience, he took away the tomb that was being built by the deceased, and buried Tutankhamun as he saw fit. No one could then have imagined that it was precisely this that would secure a place in history for the humiliated.
And it is precisely about the fate of Tutankhamun, unlike many other rulers of antiquity, that historians will argue centuries later, starting mainly not from written, but from archaeological and medical evidence.
When examining the remains of the pharaoh, two fragments were found in his skull, the origin of one of which may indicate violence.
Pharaoh was treacherously killed? Is the criminal his confidant Eye, who married (this fact is considered established) the wife of Tutankhamen in order to give his power an air of legitimacy?
Or was the pharaoh brought to the grave by hereditary diseases caused by closely related marriages, extremely characteristic of the 18th dynasty? These questions will probably remain forever unanswered.
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